Getting Inside a Convoy

[maillemaker]

Unfortunately from what I've read in these forums and from my own in game experiences, it is next to impossible to recreate in game that style of attack. It would be cool if you could though. It's nerve wracking enough just trying to penetrate the escort screen.

You can do it, but you had best do it pre-1941 when the merchants are unarmed. Because they will light you up otherwise.

I find that once you've gone to the trouble to penetrate the convoy it is just as easy to stay submerged. The only exception to this is in extremely poor visibility when you have to move to find targets in the soup. But then the problem is by the time you see them often you are inside torpedo arming range.

Steve

[Kaptlt.Endrass]

While not recommended, I will, in the case the escorts are in a ring set apart from the merchants, go in from the front. For example...

(Last month, Western Approaches [AM77])
(July 1942)

Recieved report of a convoy at 0730-ish, went to flank speed and plotted a head-on meeting. Spotted the lead escorts around 0800, dove to periscope depth and reduced speed to ahead 1/3, rigging for silent running. From my position, I observed the convoy as the lead escorts, a J&K-class and a Hunt II, approached. Recorded speed before escorts closed to within 600 meters.

From there, I lowered the perisope and killed the engines, listening closely as the two destroyers came perilously close. After three minutes and a quick look-see, I restarted the engines to one knot, angling AWAY from the convoy center.

When the lead merchants were 900 meters out, I made a turn into the convoy, easily slipping into its midst. Choosing a large tanker and troop transport as my targets, I lined up the tubes and fired. One detonated early, but the short range meant that no manuvers could be carried out. The remaining three hit as I put my stern shot into a coastal freighter and dove to 60 meters, still at one knot. From there, I turned to the convoy's end and snuck out undetected.

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So, that's how I do it sometimes. Other times, I'll hit them from outside the screen, or if it 1939-early 40, I'll maybe take out lone escorts or escort pairs before surfacing and gunning the enemy merchants down.

[GJO]

Originally Posted by maillemaker

You can do it, but you had best do it pre-1941 when the merchants are unarmed. Because they will light you up otherwise.

I find that once you've gone to the trouble to penetrate the convoy it is just as easy to stay submerged. The only exception to this is in extremely poor visibility when you have to move to find targets in the soup. But then the problem is by the time you see them often you are inside torpedo arming range.

Steve

In the early war years the chances of being damaged or even detected, when on the surface, are relatively slim in 'poor' visibility but beware of those battleships and cruisers that can sometimes be found right at the centre of a convoy.

My preferred method for dealing with poor visibility (only with slow convoys) is to manoeuvre onto a parallel course right inside the convoy - because this is where the juiciest targets are usually found. Either on the surface or at periscope depth, having picked and matched my speed to the target I stay on a parallel course at a range of about 450 metres and set up a shot at a 90 degree giro angle. With faster targets coming on a parallel course from astern of me I can sometimes get them with a stern shot but this requires much more precision. I have successfully sunk battleships and cruisers with this method - with big targets like battleships I usually fire a salvo of four torpedoes at a three degree spread angle - one of the four will often fail but three hits (especially if one hits near the propellers) can be enough to stop a battleship and if it hasn't sunk by the time that the convoy has moved on (and the escorts have lost interest), it will just sit there as an easy target.

Later in the war, when reliable and superior electric torpedoes are available, the merchants are all too often armed and the escorts have such sensitive listening skills that getting in close becomes just too hazardous but at least they won't see your torpedo tracks.